THE BOMB play dough recipe.....

2 c. flour
1 c. salt
2 Tablespoons cream of tartar
2 Tablespoons veg. oil
2 c. water
food coloring

Mix it all together in a pan over medium heat, stirring constantly. It is finished when it forms itself into a ball around the spoon.
Cool on wax paper, knead to mix all together, and store sealed.

Play Dough is one of the best early childhood materials EVER! Promotes fine motor skills, encourages practical life skills such as cutting, rolling, scooping, stirring, etc., fosters dramatic play, allows for tactile sensations, of course creativity, promotes vocabulary development, and encourages counting and literacy development.

Some skills that can be taught with play dough (in order of difficulty)
-rolling a ball (practice "size words"--roll small, tiny, huge balls....also encourages counting.)
-get 10 small paper plates. Put a circle sticker or draw a small circle corresponding to the number--ie: Draw a 1 and put one circle. Draw a 2 and put two circles. Then encourage child to put that number of balls on the plate, on top of the drawn circle.
-roll a ball, then roll that into a snake (wrist control, more size discussion--short, long)
-draw a large letter on paper and use snakes to lay on the letter lines (or number lines) (ie: trace an "A" with playdough snakes

Triangles....

Our shape of focus is the triangle. I typically pick a single shape to focus on at all times. We just work with it until I am confident Q can recognize the shape (in different sizes and various locations) and has a basic understanding of the shape's properties--number of sides and angles.

For the triangle, I make sure she is exposed to many different types of triangles--I want her to understand that any shape with 3 sides is a triangle. In children's materials they are usually only exposed to right or equilateral triangles, and when shown an obtuse or acute triangle, even my 1st graders wouldn't recignize them to be triangles. So I really work to show Q that triangles can be many different types. The one in this picture is an acute triangle, though it's a little hard to see that.

One activity that helps children understand the form of letters and shapes is to glue objects onto the line. Q chose to glue noodles on the triangle (I offered her the choice of lentils, red beans or noodles). I was impressed with how much she has improved at this activity since the last time we glued objects on a shape! Lots of freeplay with glue, paper and small objects at her art table and of course just some standard development are the cause of her improvement. I am also noticing growth in the amount of time she concentrates on tablework such as glueing!

PS) We used the glue bottle--I let her apply the glue to the lines with just a little bit of my help to keep the bottle moving so as not to create a big glue pool! I try to expose her to different techniques for gluing--gluestick, glue bottle, paintbrush and a cup of glue, toothpicks and glue, etc.

Night, turkeys!

We've learned turkeys roost (sleep) in tree branches, so every night we put our 2 turkeys up in our branch. Night, Gobble and Albuquerque!

Feeding our turkeys....

We have 2 turkeys--Gobble and Albequerque. We've learned turkeys eat acorns, worms, and seeds, among other things. We make them dinner with some acorns we collected, some "worms" made from black cord, and some pepper seeds saved from a salad. Sometimes Pink Baby dines with Q and her turkeys.

It's turkey unit time!!

Some scarecrows are our geometry teachers....

Have you noticed that scarecrows are great for teaching shapes and sizes? They often have all the basic shapes on them--triangle, circle, square, rectange. Today on our walk through the neighborhood we looked at the different shapes the neighborhood scarecrows had for noses.

Hobby Lobby has quite an assortment of scarecrows, too. You could go on a shape fieldtrip!

This guy was our favorite on our walk today. While I was photographing him, Alie pulled the jogger over. :( Very sad, Alie. Luckily it's 2 year old contents were still intact and just a little bit scared. It made her feel better to tell Alie "Very sad, Alie. Please be careful," many times, though. She's a bossy one, this girl of ours!

Ice Crushing

Here's a new activity we're enjoying:
ICE CRUSHING!
I fill a plastic ziplock bag with ice cubes and Q chooses one of her blocks and pounds away, crushing it.
It allows her to get out some of her energy, encourages both fine motor (grasping the block and wrist movement) and gross motor (swinging her arm) and hand-eye coordination (striking the block onto the ice). It makes a lovely LOUD noise that Quinn called "mumik!" After she's finished, she likes to open the bag and munch some ice. I steal the rest for my iced tea!

I like this activity to keep a hungry, melting-down little girl busy while I make lunch or dinner. And she thinks she is "eating" when she munches ice chips.

A small hammer would also work for this!

Later this week I want to teach her how to juice an orange, and then we'll pour it over some crushed ice for a yummy treat!